WARRANTY AGAINST HIDDEN DEFECT?

October 31, 2012

There’s news of a husband abroad suing his wife because the latter is actually ugly. It is reported that the wife merely underwent plastic surgery to enhance her looks. Later, when the couple had their firstborn, said husband found the baby to be quite ugly. He then sued his wife, apparently for fraud. Now this happened in a foreign country. In said case, husband and wife were able to obtain a divorce. Will the same case prosper in the Philippines?

We have no divorce law but under the Family Code a declaration of annulment of marriage may be obtained on the ground of fraud. And there are only four types of marital fraud as per our law, namely:

1. Non-dislosure of a previous conviction by final judgment of the other party of a crime involving moral turpitude;

2. Concealment by the wife of the fact that at the time of marriage, she was pregnant by a man other than her husband;

3. Concealment of a sexually transmissible disease, regardless of its nature, existing at the time of the marriage;

4. And concealment of drug addiction, habitual alcoholism or homosexuality or lesbianism existing at the time of the marriage.

The law further provides that NO OTHER misrepresentation or deceit as to character, health, rank, fortune or chastity shall constitute such fraud.

Being that concealment of an ugly progeny or anything of the same effect is not part of the enumeration, I surmise that said case will not prosper in the Philippines. That’s why some people are assailing said court decision as stupid. But I think it won’t be a stupid ruling if their law allows for it. Courts merely apply the law, right?